


Glow Up

by KisstheRainWriting



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24341782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KisstheRainWriting/pseuds/KisstheRainWriting
Summary: You’ve been trapped in a wounded TARDIS after the Doctor’s regeneration and subsequent fall to Earth. When the Doctor finally bursts back through those blue doors, you don’t handle her new appearance all that gracefully.
Relationships: The Doctor (Doctor Who) & Reader, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Reader, Thirteenth Doctor/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 72





	Glow Up

You were lying down on the floor of the TARDIS console room, the hum of the engine rattling the floor against your back. The soft orange glow from the new pillars—which you still hadn’t gotten used to, everything was so _warm_ in here now, and a bit like rock candy—bounced off your skin. You’d been here for what felt like days, but you couldn’t be sure. The kitchen was still stocked with food, and you occasionally had access to the library, but the rest of the TARDIS layout seemed to be in constant flux, with locations and contents shifting in and out of being. You’d figured that the console room was the safest constant. Most of your time was spent hunkered down here, talking to a TARDIS who seemed too busy (or too pained?) to hear you, trying to count the number of new hexagons paneling the walls (they kept moving).

The TARDIS gave a particularly nasty shudder, and you made a soft soothing noise, hoping that something as insignificant as a hum from a human might comfort her. Your knowledge of TARDIS mechanics was fairly (super) limited, but it seemed like the TARDIS was neither-here-nor-there, in some sort of constant state of landing. Or not landing. Or not being. She’d taken quite the hit.

_“Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind… Doctor, I let you go.”_

You’d watched the Doctor talk to empty air and caught him as he staggered around the console. It was like a monologue, and you couldn’t tell who was the audience—you? The Doctor himself? The universe at large? But it was a broken speech: frantic, resigned, too many tones and waves of grief for you to process at once.

And then everything was on fire _._

Like, majorly on fire. The Doctor had _exploded_.

You’d screamed, of course, basic as your survival instincts were, and ducked into the hall’s doorway. Sparks erupted from everywhere—the walls, the console, the floor. When the orange jets shooting out of the Doctor’s coat subsided, you glimpsed a head of blonde hair and a muffled, dark shape through the smoke right before the TARDIS was abruptly less right-side-up than it had been before. And as you slammed into the wall, about two feet from falling through the console room and out the TARDIS door, you watched, screaming again, as what was left of the Doctor plummeted out of the ship.

Then you were screaming, and the TARDIS was screaming, and you could hear the breaks grind as whatever was on the outside of those doors, wherever the Doctor was, faded out. Eventually everything became vertical and the explosions subsided, but you’d been stuck inside of a distressed TARDIS ever since. Occasionally you saw some sort of desert through the windows. Maybe you’d managed to end up on Earth.

“I’d still stick with you, though,” you whispered to the console. “I really hate sand in my shoes.” It felt awful, the silence that followed. No long-suffering sigh from the Doctor. No grudging chuckles.

The TARDIS shuddered again, and this time the breaks sounded different. Less airy, maybe? You sat up, pins and needles in your legs. There was a solid sort of sound, a big thudding touchdown.

An unfamiliar voice made its way through the TARDIS exterior. You scrambled to your feet as it grew loud enough to form words. “Oh, word of warning: I left it in a bit of a mess!”

The doors burst open. In stepped a woman, blond hair cropped to her chin, in a get-up that took a few minutes to sort through. Lilac coat, suspenders, rainbow-striped shirt. Pants that were way above her ankles. She walked into the room with something like awe, “You’ve redecorated…” she said, breathlessly, reverently walking up to the console. A toothy grin lit up her face. “I _really_ like it.”

You tried to move, but your legs felt like dead weight. Half in shock that there was a person, half because your limbs were asleep. You opened your mouth to say, well, something Very Clever Probably, demand to know who she was and how she’d gotten in—

“Y/N!” the woman shouted, and she practically leapt at you. Ignoring the startled noise you made, she flung her arms around you and pulled you close into her coat. “Ah, I’m so glad you’re all right—” she held you out at arm’s length, “A little fuzzy on the edges, still solidifying a bit—and your hair, has it always stuck up like that?” Before you could answer, you were back in a tight hug. She continued, rapid-fire, into your neck. “I was so, so worried you’d tumbled out of the TARDIS, no one to catch you, just gone splat onto some interdimensional blip, or a rogue time stream, or onto Texas.” The woman puffed out a relieved sigh, and it tickled your skin. “Should’ve known to trust the old girl more.”

You blinked, then blinked again. You’d recognize that ramble anywhere. It was the Doctor. _She_ was the Doctor.

Pressed against her soft new form, an awful warmth crept across your face. “Ack,” you said, actually out loud, a weird, panicked croak. _What the hell was happening?_

The Doctor drew back and cocked her head to the side, pretty blonde locks swishing against her jawline. The movement exposed a little chain earring that glinted in the TARDIS’s light. You swallowed, but your mouth had gone so dry that your throat ached—ached?? “You _are_ all right, yeah?” She asked, a new Yorkshire accent wrapping around her words. The Doctor’s eyes—big, brown doe-eyes now, flecked with gold—gleamed up at you from under thick lashes. Your stomach did a miserable little flip.

“I—yep,” you finally responded, managing to close your mouth.

She looked at you expectantly, so you gave her a weak smile, feeling hyperaware of every muscle in your face. Thankfully, you didn’t have to respond, because three people—definitely probably humans—cautiously made their way through the doors.

“Come on in!” the Doctor called. She bounced on her heels. “This…” she gestured around them, her smile proud, “…is my TARDIS.”

“Wow,” exhaled a woman with bright, dark eyes. She was also very pretty, from her neat black braid to her full lashes to, well, everything. Why was there a sudden, steady stream of pretty people? And here you were, gaping like an idiot, hair apparently very frizzy, the warmth from the Doctor’s arms still lingering around you.

“…It was a police box,” An older man with grey hair said slowly, glancing up at the ceiling with bright blue eyes and that familiar disbelief. 

“It still is on the outside,” the Doctor grinned a grin that made you feel a little… dizzy.

Oh no.

“How—how do you fit all this stuff inside a police box?”

You watched the Doctor field their questions, every answer in that old cadence you knew by heart. You tried to stop staring at her like an absolute lunatic, but your eyes had cut off communication with your brain, as had your feet, and you just stood frozen near the back. 

“This… is proper… _awesome,_ ” the third, taller, younger guy—you were sure they were humans now—said slowly, as a cute smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

“Ah, speaking of awesome,” the Doctor’s giddy voice swung toward you. “Y/N, these are my new friends! You lot, this is my Y/N.”

The grey-haired man startled as you awkwardly emerged from behind a console pillar. “Sorry, didn’t see you back there!”

You shook his hand after he introduced himself as Graham O’Brien, “No, no, you’re fine. I’ve been there. It’s a lot to take in.”

“Lots to get used to today. For me, too,” the Doctor reassured him. Turning to you, already halfway into a laugh, she said, “You know I said ‘Come to Daddy’ a bit ago when you and the TARDIS were rematerializing?”

 _What the actual—_ “… I am screaming, I am in hell,” the words slipped out, barely above a whisper.

One of the Doctor’s new friends, the woman who was closest to you, gave you a very concerned look. _Fair. Fair enough._ She approached you all the same. “Yasmin. Or Yaz,” she said, offering a soft smile and a firmer handshake. “The Doctor’s mentioned you a lot.”

“ _A lot_ a lot,” The younger man echoed, grinning. He gave you a nod. “I’m Ryan. Hey.”

The Doctor fidgeted. Her eyes avoided yours. “Just been worried, ‘s all.”

“So you travel with the Doctor? Like, full-time?” Ryan asked, his gaze still flitting to the console’s many buttons that he’d been told he couldn’t touch.

Coming out of your internal spiral, you managed a nod. “Yeah, I did.”

“Do,” the Doctor corrected, tone brisk. “ _Does_. She does.”

“Right. I do,” You amended. You and the Doctor made eye contact, and even though they weren’t the familiar shade of blue and nested under bushy grey brows, you recognized that low, sad burn in them. “Sorry. Slipped. It’s been a weird… week? Day? Don’t even know when I am.”

The Doctor’s new mouth, _and it was a really good mouth_ , scrunched into a frown.

Graham coughed. The Doctor refocused on Ryan and nearly managed to sound light-hearted. “I thought maybe you didn’t believe me that I’d get you home.”

Yasmin—Yaz—teased gently, “I thought you didn’t believe yourself for a second back there.”

“Who, me? No. Never doubted. Don’t know what you mean,” the Doctor scoffed, fondness warming her features as her eyes traced over the new TARDIS controls. “Home, then?” the Doctor asked. Glancing quickly at you, she clarified to her new friends, her voice firm, “For you three?”

“You can get us there?” Yasmin asked, hesitant. So you definitely weren’t on Earth. “Really?”

The Doctor grinned. She looked at you over her shoulder conspiratorially, her hair catching in the warm yellow light as she gave you a quick, fluttering smile. You felt the hairs on the back of your neck prickle. Her hands moved to the TARDIS controls. “Start believing.”

—

Believing had officially been postponed. The Doctor had dematerialized and rematerialized the TARDIS at least twelve times now, sending you to czarist Russia, one of Saturn’s moons, some planet whose name had sounded like a series of coughs–everywhere but Sheffield. Everyone else had wandered off to explore the ship, under loose instructions not to ‘mess with anything too much.’ And now, for the first time since she’d plummeted from the TARDIS, you and the Doctor were alone. She was still messing with the controls, and you were just… watching her.

Determined to break the silence, you tried to sound confident. Your kickstart into Quippy Companion Mode may not have been the smoothest, and the way your arms were crossed felt far too stiff, but you managed a decent: “Since when is there a cookie dispenser?”

“Since when don’t you travel with me?” the Doctor countered, not looking up.

You winced. So much for casual banter. “Sorry. It hasn’t been the easiest… however many days it’s been.”

She hummed. Her shoulders still looked tense. She’d taken off her coat, revealing suspenders and a long-sleeved undershirt that had then been rolled up to her elbows. “Everything turned orange,” you tried again. It came out one-hundred-and-ten percent more insecure than you’d hoped. “I don’t know why, I don’t think I did anything. I left to eat at some point and came back to this.”

“Oh, just the TARDIS deciding to put on a new face too,” the Doctor said, some brightness returning to her voice. “She likes to change when I do, usually. Most of the time. Or I tinker it a bit… Do you like it?”

It was _very_ orange, you thought. You settled on a neutral, “It’s bold,” and tried not to shrivel up when the Doctor beamed at you.

“And my change? Feelin…” the Doctor searched for a second, both for the right word and for a new knob on the panel. She seemed nervous. “…okay about it? Know it’s a lot to take in.”

“Just, I knew you were gonna regenerate. But I was picturing, like, Ian McKellen, not um,” you faltered. “I mean, you look great. Just younger, and, uh, lady-er than… anticipated.” _God, so lame. When were you this lame. Shit._

“Ian McKellen, ha,” the Doctor gave you a big dopey grin. _Who even_ was _this_? “That woulda been fun. But you know, gender. Wibbly wobbly.”

“Right.” Like you had dozens of times before, you leaned against the console with a forced nonchalance. “Uh, Is she going to be all right? The TARDIS, I mean.”

“The worst of it’s definitely passed, but she’ll need a little more time before she’s fully adjusted to everything.” 

A button flashed on the other side of you, and, thoughtlessly, the Doctor leaned across you to press it, leaving you trapped with her arms on either side of you. Suddenly swallowing was a feat. 

“Says you were awfully sweet to her, though, thanks for that,” the Doctor continued, not registering how you’d tensed up. “The whole thing was a bit traumatic, and it seems her guidance system is even finickier than usual—”

Unable to stop yourself, your stomach in knots, you mumbled. “I’m going to throw up.”

“—Totally typical after flying without a proper pilot, getting stuck mid-materialization. Probably just need some ginger ale.”

“Me or the TARDIS?” you deadpanned, automatically.

She moved back to the other side of the console and giggled—the Doctor _giggled._ “Oh, this-me thinks you’re funny.”

It took a second, but then you whipped your head toward her. “Wait, only _this_ you?”

She winked at you ( _winked! At you!_ ). The teasing, though, made you feel a little bolder, a little more yourself. You watched her for a moment, as she put in a new set of coordinates. You tried to match her movements to the Doctor you knew, tried to find him in her hands or in the concentration wrinkling her brow.

You took a hesitant step toward her. “Hey, Doc?”

“Hm?

“Could I…?” you had trouble articulating, even to yourself, exactly what you were asking. You held your hand up, tentatively hovering next to the Doctor’s new face. Her eyes warm over an otherwise neutral expression, she nodded her consent.

Not really sure what you were doing, chest tight, you searched her face for what was familiar, taking in more fully what had changed. You grazed her skin with the tips of your fingers. Smoother, much smoother; you almost found yourself missing wrinkles and harsh angles, the stern tilt to the mouth that tried to persuade anyone who saw it that they weren’t actually looking at laugh lines. But the little crinkles in the corners of her eyes, the ones you’d seen scrunch up when she grinned, those were beautiful. Those you recognized. You ghosted over her new nose, its newly rounded end. Shyly, you avoided that mouth. When you glanced back up at her eyes, they were molten brown. You stepped closer, to look harder into those eyes than you ever had. That weight was still there, that awful, wonderful, ageless and ancient weight. 

“It’s really you?” your voice sounded small.

“It’s really me,” the Doctor confirmed, also in a whisper.

Nodding, feeling something like acceptance, you delicately traced a pattern between the occasional freckles splashed across her skin. You inhaled. The sound was shaky, fragile against the silence that had started to bloom around you. The Doctor leaned into your palm, so that you were cupping her cheek. She exhaled when you did, tickling your face. Your hand had traveled to the shell of her ear, entirely of its own volition, when you felt your nose graze hers and suddenly realized how close you’d gotten.

You pulled back, hands withdrawing from her face. “ _Shit_ ,” you exhaled. “Doctor, I’m _so_ sorry, shit, I don’t even know what I’m doing—"

She moved to grab your hands, but they’d curled into fists. “Y/N, I—”

“I don’t know what’s happening anymore,” you stumbled backward, desperate for space, but she followed, that beautiful face crinkled in confusion, or concern, or disgust—you couldn’t tell. “I’m probably super dehydrated or tired or, or maybe my brain didn’t fully rematerialize, and it’s floating in the Time Vortex somewhere.”

“Would you just,” she started, but you shook your head frantically, trying to cut off her demand that you leave the TARDIS. Those brown eyes pierced yours, and your eyes closed reflexively, unable to handle it.

“ _Why couldn’t you have stayed an old man_?” the words escaped you in a damning, nearly petulant whine.

“Shut up,” she murmured. The Doctor had told you to shut up at least a hundred times before, but not like this—never like this. The words silenced you and hung in the air, charged with something that made you want to fidget, or run, or touch her face again. Instead, you just opened your eyes in time to see her move forward.

Her lips caught yours, soft and full and burning. Something instinctive thankfully moved your lips for you, melting into her faster than you’d thought possible. That hum again, rumbling in her chest, but a new timbre that made your breathing catch. Your hands had naturally gravitated toward her, finding her waist, anchoring yourself to her like you’d fall over otherwise. Her hands, though—her hands were the ones softly exploring your skin now, the pads of her thumbs skimming your cheekbones, brushing across your jaw. 

She broke away to press her forehead against the crook of your neck. “I’ve wanted to do that,” her breath was hot against your skin, “for a very, _very_ long time.”

“I—what?” You leaned back to meet her eyes, shocked out of the warmth that clouded your brain. “You… ? But I never thought—"

She gave you a lopsided grin. “Yeah, well, just confirms that you thought of me as an old man. I’m feeling at least one-third—nah, maybe one- _fifth_?—insulted right now.“

You winced. “Ack, no, wait, I promise I’m not a superficial asshole. You _know_ that’s not what I meant, you just never showed any interest, and I figured—”

“Y/N.”

“Yeah?”

Her fingers had found their way to your hair. “Please just let me kiss you again.”

“Right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: I know that I’m a couple, uh, years, late on the whole Thirteen Regeneration fic train, but this is my take on it. … toot toot?
> 
> (that was a train noise)
> 
> Let me know what you think!! Fuel future fluffy awkward shipping shenanigans. I hope you’re well. ♥


End file.
